27 d’abril 2015

We are not alone

Procurement and competition rules. Can the NHS be exempted?

Public procurement rules in the EU follow a weird path under ESA-2010 accounting rules. You can check it on p.22 of the Manual on Government Deficit and Debt. Implementation of ESA 2010. and the decision tree in p.25 showing a complex labyrinth.
This is the reason why in the UK (p.2 of the Kings Fund Report):
If Labour wins the general election, it has committed to repealing the procurement and competition provisions in the Health and Social Care Act 2012, including the  Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition Regulations made under Section 75 of the Act.
And even more than that:
In his speech at The King’s Fund on 27th January, Andy Burnham, Shadow Secretary of State for Health, committed to ‘claiming a full exemption for the NHS from EU procurement and competition law’
This is precisely the reason why we should do the same and put all the effort to succeed in our attempt. We have to ask for full exemption from rules created for a different purpose and adjust them appropriately to our health context. These are rules created for public accountants that constraint adequate decision making. Accounting is devoted to measurement of the costs and benefits of decisions. Rules for decision control are related to governance and audit procedures, not accounting. This is the main reason why we should ask for exemption, they were created from a wrong perspective.
We are not alone in this position, in the NHS they are concerned with the same problema.

25 d’abril 2015

Hommage a l'Arménie



Jordi Savall et Hesperion XX. L'Esprit de l'Arménie. Hier a Istanbul


Sans Émotion il n'y a pas de Mémoire, sans Mémoire il n'y a pas de Justice, sans Justice il n'y a pas de Civilisation, et sans Civilisation l'être humain n'a pas de futur.

L'Arménie est une des plus anciennes civilisations chrétiennes de l'orient, qui a survécu miraculeusement à une histoire convulsive et particulièrement tragique. Depuis sa fondation, elle se situe politiquement et géographiquement au milieu d'autres grandes cultures imprégnées par des croyances orientales et par la pensée musulmane et a vécu une histoire très douloureuse, ponctuée par des guerres et des massacres extrêmes, qui ont causé la disparition de plus de la moitié de sa population, l'exil de beaucoup d'autres et la perte de grandes parties de son territoire. Malgré cela elle a su conserver l'essence de ses particularités nationales tout au long des siècles, comme le prouve surtout la création de son propre alphabet (en 405 par le moine Mesrop Machtots) et comme le montre aussi son riche patrimoine architectural, éparpillé aujourd'hui, même en dehors de ses territoires actuels. Bien que ce patrimoine tangible en soit un des témoignages les plus frappants, elle a aussi gardé un riche patrimoine intangible, dans le domaine musical: un répertoire très riche et très différencié mais malheureusement assez peu connu (à part celui du duduk).

De toutes les cultures développées, la musique – représentée par certains instruments comme par les manières de chanter et de jouer qui peuvent la concrétiser –, devient le reflet spirituel le plus fidèle de l'âme et de l'Histoire des peuples. De tous les instruments utilisés dans ses anciennes traditions musicales, l'Arménie a accordé une préférence particulière à un instrument unique : le duduk, à tel point qu'on peut affirmer que cet instrument la définit d'une manière presque absolue. Dès l'écoute des premiers sons de ces instruments – habituellement ils se jouent en duo – la qualité (presque vocale) et la douceur de ses vibrations nous transportent dans un univers élégiaque et poétique hors norme, et nous entrainent dans une dimension intime et profonde. La musique devient ainsi un véritable baume, à la fois sensuel et spirituel, capable de toucher directement notre âme et, en la caressant, de la guérir de toutes les blessures et de tous les chagrins.

PS Le déni turc.

PS. Health care in Armenia

24 d’abril 2015

A successful implementation of a bad idea

Since 2012 it hasn't been posible to know the price of new drugs funded by NHS. The government considers that they are confidential. This is a clear example of what exactly means transparency and the application of the rule of law. Meanwhile a new strategy has been put into place. Without public prices, the government has decided to set budget ceilings for several innovative drugs: pertuzumab, ivakaftor, telaprevir/simeprevir, abiraterona, pirfenidona y ruxolitinib. And the last one is new drugs for hepatitis C, defined as "therapeutic group" not as a specific molecule. Following this strategy there is a proposal to extend such a model of budget ceilings by ATC, therapeutic classification.
This is really a bad idea that is already being implemented. As you know sometimes there are good ideas badly implemented, and therefore criticized. But in this case, it is a bad idea with a scrupulous implementation. Some officials consider that if they set a budget ceiling, all decisions will be taken  to fit in with it. Clinical decisions follow a different path, not the mechanical and administrative way officials are used to.
The measure represents a tough hit to economic evaluation, because in the next future the government will not be any longer interested in it. Why? Their only concern is about the budget ceiling, the value doesn't matter. A missed opportunity for the development of priority setting under a rational scheme. Health economists should react to such a big mistake.
The saddest  issue is that nobody knows what will happen when the budget ceiling is surpassed. This will be the job for the next government, nobody cares about it right now. Democracy and rule of law are only words subject to interpretation.

PS. All the details about hepatitis C controversy at Boletín AES.

PS. Understanding the foundations of confidential drug pricing, in Forbes.

PS. Explained at Health Affairs:


International Best Practices For Negotiating 'Reimbursement Contracts' With Price Rebates From Pharmaceutical Companies
By: Morgan, Steven; Daw, Jamie; Thomson, Paige
HEALTH AFFAIRS  Volume: 32   Issue: 4   Pages: 771-777   Published: APR 2013
 Abstract

Reimbursement contracts, in which health insurers receive rebates from drug manufacturers instead of paying the transparent list price, are becoming increasingly common worldwide. Through interviews with policy makers in nine high-income countries, we describe the use of these contracts around the globe and identify related policy challenges and best practices. Of the nine countries surveyed, the majority routinely use confidential reimbursement contracts. This alternative to drug coverage at list prices offers benefits but is not without challenges. Payers face increased administrative costs, difficulties enforcing contracts, and reduced information about prices paid by others. Among the best practices identified, policy makers recommend establishing clear and consistent processes for negotiating contracts with relatively simple rebate structures and transparency to the public about the existence, purpose, and type of reimbursement contracts in place. Policy makers should also work to address undesirable price disparities within their countries and internationally, which may occur as a result of this new pricing paradigm.


21 d’abril 2015

What clinicians do and why they do it

The Nature of Clinical Medicine. The return of the clinician

Nowadays, technology pervades media and our live. This is a good moment to rethink the basics, the foundations of medicine, its values and goals. Eric Cassell contributes decisively to this aim with his new book, a must read at least for physicians and all professionals related with medicine.
Health economists should be aware of better understanding  about the goals of medicine and purposes of physicians. They reflect the true "production function".
Here is a brief summary of the book and afterwards its goals and purposes:

Clinical medicine, as a thinking discipline, is concerned not only with what clinicians do, but why. When physicians act in medicine they have some purpose or goal in mind. What they actually do and how they go about it is in the service of their purposes and their goals. Such goals cover a wide range of topics centering on patients, the doctor-patient relationship, the acts of doctoring patients, and the goals involved in being a physician among other physicians working within the institutions of medicine.

The Nature of Clinical Medicine takes its direction from a catalog of goals of medicine that range from the expected diagnosis and treatment of diseases to wider concerns for patients, for physicians, and for medicine itself. The chapters are specific in teaching the kinds of knowledge that clinicians require in order to be able to achieve these goals. The central focus of the clinician and of this book is the patient. According to Eric Cassell, everything else, including the disease, is secondary.
Summary of the Goals of Medicine

A. Patient-centered goals

1. Save life.
2. Prolong life.
3. Cure disease.
4. Prevent suffering.
5. Relieve suffering.
6. Do no harm.
7. Protect the patient from danger.
8. Do not frighten the patient.
9. Relieve the patient’s fears.
10. Make the patient better in the patient’s terms.
11. Do nothing unnecessary (or more than necessary). B. Goals related to the physician–patient relationship
12. Develop and maintain a good relationship.
13. Be trustworthy.
14. Tell the truth.
15. Be reliable.
16. Be constant.
17. Be there when needed.
18. Make a difference.

C. Goals related directly to doctoring the patient

19. Make a diagnosis (where pertinent make a tissue diagnosis).
20. Decide what the problem is.
21. Obtain the necessary information.
22. Make sense of the case (in pathophysiological, anatomical, psychological, and social terms).
23. Decide the correct treatment and its timing.

D. Goals related to being a physician among other physicians

24. Seek and maintain comprehensive knowledge.
25. Maintain the standards of medicine.
26. See that things are done right.
27. Protect the patient from bad medicine and incompetent physicians.
28. Behave in a proper, doctorly manner.
29. Look good to other physicians and the patient and family.
30. Avoid error.
31. Avoid blame.
32. Maintain relationships with peers.
33. Stay alive in the institution (hospital or medical school) and community

The relationship between purposes or goals and values (p.166). Five kind of goals:
  1. Specific obligations to other people or institutions—patients, other caregivers, or the hospital
  2. Responses to rights that everybody has, for example, the right to refuse treatment, or to freedom from assault or coercion.
  3. Purposes based in what might be called utility. Things pursued because of the benefit to the patient, or the avoidance of injury. Also purposes directed at general benefit, like the advance of medical knowledge.
  4. Purposes related to what might be called self-development values. Here, there is intrinsic value in acquiring a particular piece of knowledge or skill because it is believed to be part of the general good if even one person has special knowledge. The goal of acquiring a particular knowledge or ability lies in this arena of values.
  5. Purposes related to one’s own project in life, like becoming a good clinician apart from, for example, the acquisition of a specific skill  or the general advance of medical knowledge

15 d’abril 2015

Tapering mechanisms for hospital payment

Tapering payments in hospitals

In Germany, payment to hospitals is based on DRGs. This means that there are some estimateas of specific relative weights and an expected volume of cases. The base rate is the pivotal element of the system. Health insurers want to avoid any surprise on their budget ceilings. Therefore some criteria in paying hospitals is the key to accomplish the budget. And what they do is the following:
Any increase in activity volume (based on the case-mix) compared to year t-1 within the range of negotiated volumes for year t is reimbursed at rate tapered by 25% (rate in force in 2013 and 2014) 
The tapering criteria is also known in our country as marginal payments, the amount that it is paid beyond a certain ceiling of discharges or visits.
Tapering is always controversial, because it may be applied to volume or to the costs (through shrinking the base rate). In both situations it is difficult to have a clear verdict of wether there is too much suplier induced demand, or just an epidemic (?).
Therefore if appropriateness criteria are not in place, the result can be anything but the fair: penalising efficient hospitals or incentivising waste.
I have always been concerned about marginal payments. A recent OECD report on this topic describes current practices and puts some caution in its application. As far as this is the first report that informs us about these practices, I specially recommend it to those officials reponsible for the issue.

PS. OECD Graph of the month. Slowdown in health spending in Europe has affected all spending categories, particularly pharmaceuticals and prevention


13 d’abril 2015

Physician self-referral: a call for action

Physician Self-referral: Regulation by Exceptions

In 2002 a new agreement was published in internal medicine reviews on Medical Professionalism in the New Millennium: A Physician Charter. Some years ago I posted the same issue. Today, I would like to highlight three points again:

  • Commitment to professional responsibilities. As members of a profession, physicians are expected to work collaboratively to maximize patient care, be respectful of one another, and participate in the processes of self-regulation, including remediation and discipline of members who have failed to meet professional standards. The profession should also define and organize the educational and standard-setting process for current and future members. Physicians have both individual and collective obligations to participate in these processes. These obligations include engaging in internal assessment and accepting external scrutiny of all aspects of their professional performance.
  • Commitment to maintaining trust by managing conflicts of interest. Medical professionals and their organizations have many opportunities to compromise their professional responsibilities by pursuing private gain or personal advantage. Such compromises are especially threatening in the pursuit of personal or organizational interactions with for-profit industries, including medical equipment manufacturers, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical firms. Physicians have an obligation to recognize, disclose to the general public, and deal with conflicts of interest that arise in the course of their professional duties and activities. Relationships between industry and opinion leaders should be disclosed, especially when the latter determine the criteria for conducting and reporting clinical trials, writing editorials or therapeutic guidelines, or serving as editors of scientific journals
  • Commitment to maintaining appropriate relations with patients. Given the inherent vulnerability and dependency of patients, certain relationships between physicians and patients must be avoided. In particular, physicians should never exploit patients for any sexual advantage, personal financial gain, or other private purpose.
 After reading JAMA article on physician self-referrals in US, definitely I have to say that this principles are far to be applied. The size of the resources coming from self-referrals is continously increasing despite the existing regulation for decades. The article puts a lot of expectations on changing the payment system, from fee-for-service towards value-based payments to curb the situation. I'm not so confident on this tool, because its implementation is far from optimal.
Anyway this is a difficult issue, and the same happens to dual practice in general. Some weeks ago a new resolution on how to handle conflicts of interest between public and private care was released. Two different concerns appear on my mind. The first is when any patient that decides to start a private treatment, then there is no option to go back to the public sector. He rejects explicitly public coverage. This statement may be appropriate for those patients on public waiting lists, but its application to other situations may be fuzzy. The second relates to information by the healthcare faciliy to patients about benefits and rights. I'm uncertain about how this can be applied without biases, without interference of physicians. My suggestion would be to use more transparent and centralised ways to inform patients through internet.
Unfortunately what I missed is precisely any regulation on physician self-referrals, the core of the problem. This affects publicly funded -in case of dual practice- and private care. Somebody should have a clear position on that. In my opinion, it should start by physicians associations. Self-regulation is a better starting point than any ban on this practice. As you may deduct easily, the general application of the former physician charter would solve this issue.